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Running Gags
In the Captain Underpants series, there are numerous running gags in each book, which vary from chapter titles to catchphrases. List of running gags *Every book (except book 10 and book 12) begins with "This is George Beard and Harold Hutchins. George is the one on the left with the tie and the flat-top. Harold is the one on the right with the T-shirt and the bad haircut. Remember that now." *At the end of every book (until the 5th book) Captain Underpants flies out the window. *Whenever Captain Underpants flies away, he shouts "Tra La LAAAAA!!" *At the end of each book, Harold says, "Oh no!", and George says "Here we go again!" *The fourth wall is often broken. The characters in the series all seem to be highly aware that they are inside a book, frequently referencing pages, chapters and other books in the series. On one occasion, George speaks directly to the unseen narrator, and another time he mentions the third book, calling it "the one with the annoyingly long title." At the end of the fourth book, Harold states,"I think this is the first time one of our books had a moral!" *The last phrase of a chapter is often answered by the title of the next chapter. For example, in the third book, George "He's got to believe us... at least I hope he believes us!" and the title of the next chapter is "He doesn't believe them." *Every book has a chapter consisting of just a few words, titled "To Make a Long Story Short." The usual phrase in the chapter is "It did." The eighth book inverted this joke and added another chapter named "To Make An Even Longer Story Even Shorter." *Every book begins with "George and Harold" as the first chapter, with George and Harold switching a sign around to make a funny phrase. This pattern was changed in Captain Underpants and the Big Bad Battle of the Bionic Booger Boy (part 2), which also introduces Melvin Sneedly, Mr. Krupp, Sulu, Carl, Trixie, and Frankenbooger, due to the chase. George and Harold still switch a sign around. This running gag was discontinued from the eighth book onwards due to the various situations and/or locations that are involved in the first chapter. *Every book has two comics, one at the beginning (a short recap of the previous books) and one in the middle (for humor, and someone often complains about it afterward). The exceptions are books five, eight and nine where there are three comics. *Every book has a chapter known as "The Incredibly Graphic Violence Chapter," which has an animation technique known as Flip-O-Rama. It is a method of animation by flipping one page with pictures on the page behind to create an illusion of repetitive action. There is a warning or notice right before the Flip-O-Rama occurs describing how graphic the scenes are. *In George and Harold's comics, the gym teacher and some inanimate object are attacked/destroyed somehow by the antagonist, and the principal expresses more concern for the inanimate object than the gym teacher. In the second book's comic, for example, when a kid says the Talking Toilets scratched someone's car and ate the gym teacher the principal says "Lord have mercy! Was it MY car?" *All of George and Harold's comics have bad spelling and fractured grammar. In the 8th book, it shows one of Evil George and Evil Harold's comic books about Captain Blunderpants. In it, it has correct spelling, grammar and better artwork. George and Harold ironically mention later that they thought some words were spelled wrong in it, and that the pictures looked horrible. *There are many references to The Three Stooges in the series. Two of Harold's hamsters are named "Dr. Fine" and "Dr. Howard," the school the boys attend is called Jerome Horwitz Elementary, the initial team name is the Knuckleheads, and George and Harold get their hypnotic ring from the "Li'l Wise Guy Novelty Company." *In almost every book in the novel series there is a little boy along with his mother who witness Captain Underpants fighting the antagonist. The boy tries to tell his mother what is happening but she doesn't believe him. *George and Harold often note that the fate of the world is in their hands which is often said in a dire situation. The only times they have not said this were in the 6th and 7th books. Category:In-universe articles